Former KMSP-TV reporter Beth McDonough recalls how addiction nearly destroyed her career

Beth McDonough has every reason to never return to the Twin Cities.

It was here that her second DWI triggered the end of her stint as a crime reporter for KMSP and nearly left her homeless.

But McDonough is back to celebrate nearly 17 years of sobriety and the launch of a new book, “Standby,” that details how alcoholism shattered her seemingly picture-perfect life and how she began to pick up the pieces.

“I hope that I’m inspiration in action,” McDonough, 57, said earlier this week at the Highland Park home of her friend Dede Ciprari. “When I told my therapist I was writing a book, she said, ‘You’re either brilliant or crazy.’”

McDonough started writing the book in 2009, shortly after returning from Hazelden treatment center and while under house arrest, a monitoring bracelet strapped to her ankle. She showed an early draft to Ciprari, who wasn’t impressed.

“It’s boring,” Ciprari told her. “You’ve told the facts. Now tell the rest of the story. How did it impact you? How did it affect other people?”

McDonough wasn’t ready to answer those questions. It wasn’t until she moved to Utah in 2020 that she was ready to put down in writing the most embarrassing and heart-breaking moments of her life.

“I had to step outside of my habit as a reporter of being objective and be more vulnerable,” said McDonough, sporting a burgundy leather jacket and sipping a Coke Zero. “People who have made bad decisions need to see how bad it was so they can connect with you.”

The book, which ends in 2009 with her house in foreclosure, will be followed next year by “Still Standing,” a look at how she started again at the ground level by walking dogs for her neighbors, a chore that eventually grew into a successful doggie-care business.

It will also share how KSTP hired her in in 2012 as a producer, three years after she assumed her broadcasting career was kaput.

“People make mistakes. She’s paid the price for her mistakes,” Lindsay Radford told the Star Tribune in 2014 when she was the station’s news director. “If we don’t give people a chance to redeem themselves, then what kind of society are we?”

McDonough is grateful to KSTP for giving her the opportunity. She also has kind words to say about the bosses at KMSP who canned her.

“Still Standing” won’t be all sunshine and roses. She’ll also write about how she contracted Lyme disease and got hit by a concrete-filled tennis ball during one of the riots after the murder of George Floyd. McDonough said in July 2020, she was heading back to a KSTP van when a protestor approached her with a gun pointed at her head.

“You’re media,” he said. “You’re next.”

McDonough decided it was time for a change.

“I was reading the tea leaves and the signs and thinking, ‘This is not going to end well for me,’” she said.

McDonough moved to St. George, Utah, next to Zion National Park and just a two-hour drive from Las Vegas, where she does occasional modeling work for TV commercials.

Her next-door neighbor Tammy Moon watched as McDonough put the book together and dealt with hardships that ranged from dealing with the editing process to grappling with a disease that often left her bedridden (McDonough only started feeling close to full strength this year).

But Moon, who first befriended McDonough when they both lived in Minnesota, has always known she can count on McDonough to take time away from her own troubles to help others.

When Moon lost her only child last year in a motorcycle accident, McDonough was her first call. She flew back with her to Minnesota and handled much of the funeral logistics.

“She does things in a way that’s respectful but gets the results that are needed,” Moon said.

Moon and McDonough are getting ready to launch a podcast, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” They’ll record episodes during McDonough’s book tour, which includes a stop at Edina’s Barnes & Noble on Saturday afternoon, and in subsequent cities like Philadelphia and Houston, markets where she worked before landing in the Twin Cities.

It’s hard to find single people in her largely Mormon community in Utah, and the Vegas dating scene isn’t for her. But she’s open to embarking on a new relationship.

She’d also consider another stab at TV journalism.

“I don’t want to say no,” she said. “But I think I’m on a different path now.”

Book signing for ‘Standby’

When: 1-3 p.m. Saturday